was a soldier who could rarely find time to come and see me.
Nay, was not often in Paris, and then not always able to make even so
short a journey as that to Montereau. Yet," went on St. Georges,
meditatively, "he came sometimes, loaded with presents for me which he
brought in the coach, and passed the day with us, being always
addressed as Captain St. Georges by the pastor. Those were happy days,
for he was always kind and good to me, would walk out with me hand in
hand, would spend the day with me in the Forest of Fontainebleau, hard
by, and would talk about my future. Yet he was sad, too; his eyes
would fill with tears sometimes as he looked at me or stroked my hair,
and always he asked me if I would be a soldier as he was. And always
in reply I answered, 'Yes,' which seemed to please him. So I grew up,
treated with more and more respect mingled with affection from the
pastor as time went on; and, also, I was now taught military exercises
and drilled in preparation for my future career. But as the time went
on my father came less and less, though he never failed to send ample
sums to provide for my education and also for my pleasures. When I
asked the pastor why he never came near us, he said he was occupied
with his profession, that he was away in the Palatinate with Turenne.
Now, at that period, I being then about eighteen, there came
frequently to Paris the story of all that was doing in the
Palatinate--stories that made the blood run cold to hear. Stories of
villages and towns burnt, so that never more should that region send
forth enemies against Louis."

"They penetrated further than Paris and Montereau," interrupted
Boussac, "ay, even to our out-of-the-way part of France. And not only
of villages and towns burnt and destroyed, but of fathers and
breadwinners burnt in their beds, women ill treated, ruin everywhere.
There were those who said it was not war, but rapine."

"And so I said," replied St. Georges; "once even I went so far as to
say that I regretted that my father followed so cruel and bloodthirsty
a man as Turenne. But the pastor stopped me, rose up in his chair in
anger, bade me never say another word against him--told me that I, of
all alive, had least right to judge him."

"But," exclaimed Boussac, "this does not show that the duke was your
father, monsieur. The worthy pastor may have thought it wrong to
encourage you in speaking ill of one----"

"Nay; listen," said St. Georges. "The year 1674